Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Our New ABC Book

I have finally come to terms with the fact that I just. do. not. have. time. to make lapbooks for M for every single letter of the alphabet. At least not unless I want to take, oh two years, to teach him.

They are fun for me to put together, and fun for him too, so I plan to continue making them as I have time, but they will be for when he is a bit older and we’ll use them more for fun and as a review. As I complete them I’ll post them to the left over there where it says “ABC Lapbooks”. :)

In the meantime we are making a new, no-fuss, quick ABC book. I hope to do a letter per week, but I know realistically there will be weeks when I just haven’t had time to plan anything. The format of this book will work with that because I’m working on getting it all ready at one time.

The format is pretty simple. 3 pages per letter…

craft page

collage page

tracing page

So, right now I’m collecting ideas in a spreadsheet for a simple craft for each letter. This will be nothing fancy! Just something to help M remember the sound the letter makes.

The collage page will be a workbox activity for him, which will look like this: A blank page except for the upper and lowercase letters in the center. And this: Another page with 5 items that begin with the letter, which he will cut out and glue around the letters on the other page. I’ll include scissors and a glue stick in his workbox.

I am having a little trouble coming up with 5 items for some of the letters. For those letters I may do something different… we’ll see. For now, those are at the end of the list so we have time to think of something.

And the 3rd page is this: A tracing page from Making Learning Fun. The yellow dashed line in the letters is there if you look hard enough! I have attached a dry-erase marker to the inside of the binder with velcro. He can use the marker to trace the letters, then erase with a piece of felt which will be kept in the pocket.

I’ll be keeping a list of our crafts on the sidebar under “Our ABC Book”. I’ll also include a link to them in my weekly Tot School posts, where you'll find any other activities we did for the letter of the week.

I’m excited about this, and eager to go through the letters and phonics a little more quickly than we have been. It will be a fun ABC book in the end that M can look through and “read” on his own.

I’d love to know if you have something similar and what you do about those troublesome letters out there like X and Z. :)

10 comments:

I have wanted to make something like this too. I actually started compiling clipart from the internet and I have also added certain pics of us doing things that start with that letter. Example, a picture of Drew napping for the letter N and of course my a picture of my son Nick on that page too.

I love adding a tracing page too. And the way you have it in a page protector the kiddos could use playdough for tracing too.

I love what you are doing! I'd started doing something like this with Bear before we moved (the collage and the craft pages) but let it drop. Now that I'm starting a little coop thing with some of her playmates, we'll be starting this again. I like how you have put the tracing page inside the page protector so he can practice over and over again. I think Bear is too young still for the tracing but I'll have to remember your idea for next year.

I am so with you on not being able to make lapbooks for the whole alphabet. I am currently doing that with my daughter and her MFW curriculum, but I have already decided that I will NOT be doing that for any of the boys for preschool or kinder...just don't have the time. Plus, am so OCD that I would feel the need to make one for each of them...realistically, that is just NOT going to happen. Sorry to write so much...I just came to the same realization earlier last week!!! But, my OCD will not let me stop making them for my daughter until we complete the curriculum...go figure...

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About Me

I am a wife of 13 years and mother of two sons, ages 6 and brand new. We have a lot of fun learning and growing together. I share a bit of that here, and welcome you to follow us along our happy (but sometimes exhausting) little journey.
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